Celia Garth: A Novel

by Gwen Bristow

  CELIA NEVER HAD A clear recollection of her journey back to Sea Garden or of the next few days. She did not remember that she talked at all about what she had seen at Bellwood. She had never been a great talker, and now she seemed to have been stricken almost dumb. She went about quietly, ate what they set in front of her, lived somehow.

  Vivian asked if she did not want a cot moved into her bedroom so she could have Marietta with her at night. Celia shook her head. She slept in snatches, and when she was tired of tossing in bed she would get up and sit by a window, where she could watch the patterns of moonlight or listen to the fall of summer rain. She did not want anybody there, urging her to sleep when she could not sleep.

  But the nights were long and cruel. She would dream about the awfulness at Bellwood and wake up shaking with sobs. Or she would dream about Jimmy, and wake up to the black knowledge that Jimmy was dead. She thought what fools they had been to let that prig of a parson keep them apart. Suppose he did refuse to say the holy words till after she came of age? Why had they waited? At least she could have had something to remember.

  The first thing she noticed—she did not recall how many days had passed before she noticed it—was that neither Miles nor Amos was anywhere to be seen. She could not remember anything about Miles since the moment when he had snatched out his pistol in half-blind fury and shot Rosco. She had thought he was going to shoot himself, and had wondered why Lewis had sprung forward to stop him, since after what he had heard Miles must be already dead inside.

  She thought of this one morning when she came out on the piazza and saw Madge cutting a bouquet of sweet peas. Celia went out and asked her what had become of Miles.

  Madge was too wise to be evasive. She said that after Miles had fired the shot he stood there staring at the smoking pistol. Then all of a sudden, like a man pursued by things nobody else could see, he turned and plunged into the woods. Just as suddenly, Amos and Big Buck went after him. Lewis told the others to let all three of them go. Among the Negroes carried off by Tarleton had been the people Amos and Big Buck loved best. They and Miles would understand one another now.

  Celia pulled a handful of sweet peas from the trellis and walked away, tearing them to pieces and letting the petals scatter on the ground. She wished she could go into the woods too, and hide, like a sick animal.

  That afternoon Godfrey and Ida rode in. They had not heard of the holocaust at Bellwood, but when Lewis told them about it they exchanged meaningful glances, and Godfrey commented harshly, “So, that butcher meant just what he said.”

  Celia, sitting on the piazza, heard these words through a window. The others asked Godfrey what he meant, and he said, “You haven’t heard about Colonel Sumter?”

  At this, Celia came in. Vivian held out her hand, and Celia sat on the floor by Vivian’s chair. Vivian did not forbid her to listen. She knew a forced sheltering was not kind. “Go on, Godfrey,” Vivian said.

  Godfrey said that since the home of Ida’s family was near a main crossing of the Santee, they had frequent visitors. While there, Godfrey had heard a lot of news.

  He said that after revoking the paroles Clinton had taken ship for New York, leaving Cornwallis in command of the king’s men in the south. When he had set up a supply post at Camden in the northern part of South Carolina, Cornwallis sent Tarleton out to get equipment and Tory recruits. He told him also to clear up any “nests of treason” he might find.

  This Major Tarleton was twenty-six years old. He came of a well-to-do family in Liverpool, but already before the start of the American war he had run through the fortune his father had left him. When the war began he decided to enter the army, that refuge of debt-ridden aristocrats. His mother bought him a commission. Tarleton set out for New York, announcing that it was his purpose to kill more men and bed more women than any other hero of his majesty’s troops.

  So far his success in both his aims had been so great that he was generally referred to as Beast, or Butcher, or Barbarian, or uglier words. His own first name was Banastre, which nobody could pronounce anyway, and Americans said the other names were more fitting.

  Colonel Thomas Sumter was an officer of Continental troops. He had taken part in the battle of Fort Moultrie in 1776, but in the quiet years following that victory he had retired to his plantation. He had not aided in the defense of Charleston because he had been prostrated by tragedies of his own. Father of a large family, he had in the space of a few weeks seen an epidemic kill all his children but one small boy; and about the same time his wife was stricken with paralysis and left unable to walk. Sumter had hardly known when the British attacked Charleston, or cared. But when he learned that the city was taken he roused himself to fight again. Leaving his wife and child in care of a niece and the family servants, Sumter rode off to organize rebel troops in North Carolina.

  Tarleton had hoped to catch up with him. But failing in this, he destroyed Sumter’s plantation with the same terrible thoroughness he had used a few days later at Bellwood. Sumter’s little son scrambled up a tree, where he clung out of sight and watched the havoc. But Mrs. Sumter, in her chair in a room upstairs, could not move.

  Tarleton ordered the house set afire. Busy supervising the destruction outside, he paid no attention to Mrs. Sumter’s screams. But two of his men, more decent than their leader, made their way back into the burning house and carried her out before the walls fell in. They left her there among the ruins of her home, and as they rode away Tarleton spread the word that this was how he intended dealing with any other traitors who continued to fight their lawful king.

  As Godfrey told his story Celia sat where she was, on the floor by Vivian’s chair. She was not crying. She felt tortured with a helpless hate.

  Godfrey urged Herbert and Vivian not to stay any longer at Sea Garden. He begged them to come to Charleston with him.

  But all that evening, all the next day, Herbert and Vivian said no.

  Herbert said, “We have no big fields, no army of Negroes to be carried off. We’re not worth the trouble of a raid.”

  Vivian said, “Our schooner is in the boathouse. If we get scared we can come to Charleston any time.”

  At last, the afternoon of the second day, they said they were tired arguing and wanted to rest. Herbert went to his library, Vivian started for her bedroom. As she stood up, Godfrey made one more exasperated effort.

  “Mother, I know it’s because of Luke that you want to stay here. But what good are you doing?”

  Vivian smiled serenely. “Godfrey dear, wouldn’t you just love to know?”

  Celia had kept in the background. But now she slipped out and spoke to Vivian in the hall.

  “Please, may I say something? I won’t take long.”

  “Come in here,” said Vivian. She opened the door of the room where she kept her household records, and sat down by the desk. Celia stood before the desk, twisting her hands. “What’s the trouble?” Vivian asked.

  How calm she was, how sure of herself. How Celia envied her. Celia herself was as tense as a fiddle-string. She spoke in jerks. “Vivian—you’re going to stay here all summer?”

  “Why yes,” said Vivian, like any lady asked about her summer plans. “Why?”

  “Then,” Celia said—“then may I stay too?” She stopped, wet her lips, made herself go on. “You see—it wasn’t until just now—when they begged you to leave Sea Garden—that I realized—I haven’t anywhere to go.”

  She thought she had never spoken words that were so hard to say. Crying for shelter like a stray cat.

  Vivian smiled a little. “Why yes, Celia, you can stay here.”

  “I won’t stay forever!” Celia promised hastily. “I’ll go somewhere—I’ll do something. But right now—I’m all mixed up.”

  Vivian was looking straight at her. “You’ll have to make your own life, Celia,” she said. “We all do. Nobody can help us much.”

  Vivian must know what she was talking about. She had lived deeply, had had experience of loss. Celi
a blurted,

  “Vivian, you—so many—what do you do?”

  “You live through it, Celia,” said Vivian. Her voice was firm. “You find out—and sometimes it’s very surprising—that no matter what you lose, there’s always something else. Life can still be good.”

  Celia stood with her hands still clenched, angry with herself for asking. “Life can still be good.” Oh, it was easy for Vivian to say that. Her world was full of blessings—riches and high position and so many people who loved her. Vivian could not know what it meant to be alone, and desolate.

  Celia brought herself back to her purpose. “Thank you for letting me stay. But I don’t want to be a burden. Haven’t you some work I can do?”

  “Plenty,” Vivian answered tersely. She opened a drawer. Expecting a sewing-basket, Celia was surprised to see her take out shears and garden gloves. “The flowers need looking after,” said Vivian. “You can start in the morning.”

  Later Celia thought, whatever Vivian does it’s not what you expect her to do. But somehow it’s usually right.

  The Bernards and the Penfields left for Charleston. As Burton and his family had left already, there was nobody at Sea Garden now but Herbert and Vivian and Celia, and about twenty Negroes. The summer tasks went along. Marietta said it was almost like old times.

  Celia’s work began as soon as she had had breakfast. Directed by Vivian, she raked and spaded, pulled up weeds and trimmed the bushes, thinned the spring bulbs and put in new ones for autumn blooming. By the time she stopped to get ready for dinner she was dirty and aching and dripping with sweat. But when she came to table she was hungry, and at night her muscles relaxed, so that she went to sleep with peace in her body even if it had not yet reached her heart.

  There were still times when she dreamed of Bellwood and woke up shuddering, and other times when she lay awake wondering what was going to become of her. One night she woke to such hot stillness that she could hardly breathe. When she went to the window she could not feel a stirring of wind. Outside, the trees looked weird in the faint greenish glow of the moon. The long gray moss hung motionless. Celia could hear the croaking of frogs, and now and then the chirp of a night-bird.

  The air was like a burden. Wide awake and restless, she thought it might ease her nerves if she walked around. She was not in the habit of roaming about the house at night, but it would not matter if she was very quiet. She put on her dressing-gown and slippers. They were soft quilted cloth slippers, and would make no sound. Opening the door carefully she went into the hall.

  Through a front window came the glow of the moon. It did not give much light, just that greenish radiance, ghostly on the long gray moss and ghostly here as it threw the shadows of the windowpanes in rectangles on the floor.

  How quiet it was, how lonesome. This was a house built for a large family and many guests, but now there was nobody on the second floor but herself. On a front corner was the master suite of rooms. Herbert and Vivian used to have these for their own, but in late years, since they had found it tiresome to climb stairs, they had changed to rooms on the first floor. The servants slept in their own wing at the back of the house. The closed doors along the hall, and the empty rooms behind them, seemed grim, unfriendly.

  Celia went to the railing of the staircase and looked down. The stair-well was black. Below her, on the landing halfway down, she could hear the deep slow ticks of the great clock. She thought of how they had raised their glasses New Year’s Eve, and how Jimmy had given her that gay loving smile as he whispered “Happy New Year!”

  How loud the clock sounded in the silent house. The slow tick-tocks seemed to draw her downstairs, toward the ballroom. She gathered her robe around her and felt her way down the stairs, guiding herself with a hand on the rail.

  The lower hall was dark but not completely black. Over the front door were panes of heavy glass, through which the moon shone dimly. As Celia paused at the foot of the stairs to see her way, above her the clock gave a low stern whirr. It was about to strike. Remembering the ballroom, she shivered and put her hand over her eyes. The clock struck two.

  Moving soundlessly, she made her way toward the ballroom. In these days the ballroom looked very little like the gorgeous place where they had danced last New Year’s Eve. With no prospect of entertaining company any time soon, Vivian had protected the floor with heavy canvas, and had moved in some pieces of furniture that she wanted out of the way for the summer. Celia stood a moment on the threshold.

  The curtains were closed. At the front windows she could see a shimmer of moonlight around the edges. The furniture, shrouded in dust-covers, looked like lumps of thicker darkness in the dark.

  She went inside. The place had the musty smell of a room little used. Moving along the wall, she put out her hand and found the marble mantelpiece. The hard cold feel of it was refreshing on her damp skin. She thought of the room as it had been that night, the candles glancing back and forth from the mirrors, the music and laughter, the tinkle of glasses and the swish of silk. And how happy she had been.

  Over by a corner window was a black lump that might be a chair. She went toward it, and held back the window-curtain long enough to see. The window was locked top and bottom, and had a heavy oak beam across it. At night every window in the house was locked except those of the occupied bedrooms; Herbert went around to make sure of it, and the locks were of a complex design. It would do nobody any good to break a pane and reach in from outside.

  Under the dust-cover was a deep cushioned chair such as Herbert liked to draw up by the fire in winter, but for which he had no use in sticky weather like this. Celia let the curtain fall, and curled up in the chair. Right over there on the wall, so near that she could almost have touched it, was the mirror where she had seen herself when she stood by the punch-table thinking, I’m not really beautiful but I feel beautiful, and I look like a girl who feels beautiful.

  She did not know how long she sat there, remembering, telling herself she ought to go back to her room because the pain of remembering was so great, but staying here anyway, remembering more. Suddenly in the silence she heard a sound.

  She stiffened. Her skin prickled as she thought, Tarleton.

  But maybe she had not heard anything. Or maybe Herbert and Vivian could not sleep either, and were up, moving around. She hadn’t heard anything and if she had it wasn’t important.

  She heard it again.

  Footsteps. Soft, careful footsteps. Somebody was in the house. It could not be Tarleton, or sneak-thieves—nobody could force a way into this house without a banging and battering that could be heard a mile. It was Herbert or Vivian, no doubt about it.

  But the steps did not come from the direction of the rooms occupied by Herbert and Vivian. They came from the back of the house and they were coming this way.

  It had been only a second or two since she had heard the first sound, but it seemed an hour. With no conscious direction of her own her head had turned toward the door, but otherwise she had not moved. She could not. She sat deep in the chair, tense with fright.

  Somebody was standing in the doorway. A man—she could barely make out his figure in the dark. As she had done, he stood a moment on the threshold to get his eyes adjusted to what glimmer of light there was, then with the sureness of a man who knew his way around, he went to the nearest window. His footsteps were almost soundless on the covered floor.

  He moved the curtains a little way apart. Through the window came a faint light. The light was so dim, and Celia so frightened, that it took her an instant to recognize Luke.

  Luke wore neither hat nor coat, and the moon shone around the hard lines of his body. He turned from the window and started back toward the door. She saw that he had on heavy boots that would have clumped noisily if the floor had been bare. So it was to protect Luke, and not the dance-floor, that Vivian had laid that canvas.

  Celia had nearly exclaimed when she saw him, and almost instinctively she had pressed her fist over her mouth. Luke was a
fugitive, maybe even now he was being pursued. If she spoke and startled him she might betray him. She sat still, barely breathing.

  Luke was at the doorway. In a low voice he said, “Come in, sir. You can see your way now.”

  He stepped aside. His voice, his manner, his every movement, showed a deep deference. Celia stared through the dark. Somebody important was about to come in.

  Two men came through the doorway. One of them was a Negro, and leaning on his arm was a white man, smaller in build, who walked with a bad limp.

  With the colored man’s aid, the little cripple took a few halting steps toward Luke. The three men exchanged whispers. Though Celia could not make out the words, she could tell that Luke was still addressing the lame man with the greatest respect.

  Luke walked toward the fireplace. Against the dark wood paneling of the wall by the mantel, Celia could barely make out his figure. He said,

  “Ready, Colonel Marion.”

  Marion!

  Celia felt a shock. She had thought Marion would be a personage. Not a shriveled-up shrimp. He might improve when he could walk—that fall last March must have been a bad one, since he was still limping in midsummer—but even standing up straight he would not look as if he amounted to much.

  Supported by the Negro, Marion hobbled toward the fireplace. Then, while Luke stood there, Marion and the colored man went through the wall.

  Celia felt pins and needles in her hair.

  There was no door next to the fireplace. On both sides there was that dark wood paneling, against which the white marble stood out in beautiful contrast. But Marion and the Negro had gone through the wall. Luke stood there alone. Now as he turned around she could see that the wall was still there—she saw a faint reflection of moonlight on the paneling.

  Luke had started again toward the door. In her amazement Celia forgot her caution. She said, “Luke!”

  He wheeled on one foot and stared around. She had stood up, and he saw her, a white figure in the dark. She said, “It’s me—Celia.”

  “Oh,” said Luke, and coming quickly toward her he caught her hand in his. His hand was rough and hard, and felt enormously strong. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.