What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Wouldn’t o’ known much more’n he did, Mr Livesey,” the magistrate easily dismissed, working his mouth in what looked to be a fretful grimace of distaste. “Gettin dirt on their masters from th’ Negroes is worse’un pullin’ back teeth, lest they get flogged t’death for talkin’ … or knowin’ too much. Mind now … keep mum an’ glum, like I bade ye, just nod and grump a little, an’ let me direct things ‘til I tell ye. Keep that bundle hid ‘til I call for it. Constable, ye stand ready in th’ background, too, ‘long with Captain Buckles, here.”

  “Yessir,” Swann mumbled, looking ill-at-ease with his tiny role, and mopping his face with a florid-printed calico handkerchief.

  Their coach squeaked and jingled as it turned into the circular drive about a decorative round garden in front of the house’s elegant stairs, at last. Livesey was again impressed, even a tad envious, to see what Thomas Lakey had wrung from the wilderness in so few years.

  The Lodge was a two-story house of white-painted wood outside, raised off the damp ground and the threat of storm flooding on massive ballast-stone or “tabby” pillars, elevated about shoulder high on the average man, and the gaps between the pillars screened with latticed slatting and homemade brick. The whole house was fronted by a deep veranda or gallery that spanned its entire width, with a brick-fronted landing that bore two sets of stairs before it, with another, wider set of stairs leading to the veranda itself. Round, smooth-milled columns held up a smaller, covered veranda on the upper floor. Live oaks stood all about the house proper, shading it from all weathers, with lush gardens to either hand and out back, giving separation from slave quarters, cooking shed, smokehouse, stables and barns. Massive trees had been left in place, girded by white wood benches and sitting areas, with brick or oyster-shell walks leading to them, and the lawns under those shade trees were so neatly kept that the whole resembled a parkland of a great and titled English lord.

  Andrew Hewlett was sitting on the first floor veranda, with a book and slate in hand over some studies. As they departed the coach he got to his feet, beaming in pleasure, and only a slight bit of confusion, dressed in a loose, ruffled shirt tucked into fawn breeches, and a pair of everyday white cotton stockings. He fumbled teenaged-awkward with his toes to put his old buckled shoes back on as they came up the two-stage stairs.

  “Mr Livesey, I thought you were coming tomorrow!” Andrew declared. “What brings you today, sir? Did ah…is Bess with you?”

  “No, she’s …” Livesey replied, feeling almost pained.

  “What is … ?” young Andrew pressed, flustered to see the pair of redcoats clamber down from the postillion seats behind the coach, their sheathed hangers and bayonets and Brown Bess muskets clinking, to see the stranger—Captain Buckles of the 16th Foot—the constable and the magistrate all together … He made but perfunctory answers to the somber introductions.

  “Something the matter, Mr Marsden?” Andrew asked, peering from face to face as ifhe might divine the cause for their presence.

  Such a good, gentle lad, Livesey sorrowfully thought, unable to look Andrew Hewlett in the eyes. Within minutes, did things take the turn they all now suspected, they might have to arrest his uncle, his guardian and practically his only living kin.

  “Got bus’ness with yer uncle, Andrew,” Mr Marsden said gruffly, getting to the meat of the matter, as he cut himself off a small chew of tobacco. “He to th’ house?”

  “On a brief ride, sir, but… what sort of business, if I may ask?” Andrew Hewlett dared demand, shifting from one foot to the next.

  They didn’t have to answer that question for Thomas Lakey came round the corner of the house, mounted on a coffee-brown mare of fine conformation and proud, young, high-stepping gait. When he got to the corner of the house, Lakey drew rein, and Mr Livesey was certain he would put spurs to her and bolt, yet … Thomas Lakey merely gave them all a wry smile, then kneed her back into a walk. A Negro groom came to take her reins as Lakey dismounted, and lead her to the stables.

  “Mr Marsden, sir,” Mr Lakey said once he’d attained the veranda’s coolness and shade, slapping a weathered tricorne on his thigh before being relieved of it, and his riding crop, by one liveried servant, and presented with a cool, wet towel by a female servant, which he used to carefully, genteelly dab at his neck, face, brow and wrists. “Constable Swann … Mr Livesey. An’ you must be Captain Buckles from down by Brunswick Town, I s’pose. Must’ve had a warm drive out here. Seat yourselves, an’ I’ll send for refreshments. An’ you can tell me what brings ya out here on such a humid day,” he invited as he took a sprawling seat in a big rocking chair, swinging a booted leg over one arm as ifhe hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Got some bus’ness with ye, Thom,” the magistrate graveled. “We speak private, may we?” he added, with a jerk of his head towards Andrew Hewlett. Marsden used none of the usual Low Country Carolina social amenities, no joshing, no prefatory pleasantries or any round-about inconsequentials that Livesey, frankly, had found maddening those first couple of years after moving to Wilmington, before learning to adapt.

  “Well, o’ course, gentlemen,” Lakey said with a hospitable grin and a spread of his arms as if in welcome. “Andrew, you go on into th’ house, now. You can finish your studies in th’ parlor, or on th’ back porch, if that’s cooler.”

  “Uncle Thom, is there something … ?” Andrew uneasily fretted as he all but wrung his hands.

  “Go on in th’ house, Andrew, hear me?” Lakey said more sternly. “Yessir.”

  “Now,” Mr Lakey genially asked, once his nephew had obeyed him and had slunk into the house’s dim interior, “what is it that plagues y’all… Mr Marsden?”

  The magistrate finally took a chair for himself, prompting the rest of them to sort themselves out on padded benches or spindly cane chairs, Captain Buckles and Constable Swann wedging themselves side-by-side on a short slat settee more suited to a single lady and her wide skirts.

  “Got a few questions t’put to ye, Thomas,” Marsden slowly began. “No call t’drag this out longer’n it should take. We know” Marsden baldly announced, peering at Mr Lakey intently and waiting for a sign of upset. “Just about ev’ry li’l bit ofit… ‘ceptin’ fer th’ why.”

  If Mr Marsden had hoped to ruffle Thorn Lakey’s calm demeanor, he was badly let down, for Mr Lakey only cocked his head and raised a brow, with the tiniest bit of clueless but polite smile on his face. A bemused robin listening for a worm, Livesey thought ofhim.

  “Ya know what, an’ th’ why o what, sir?” Lakey said, seemingly at a loss, but willing to indulge the older man.

  “That ye murdered Harry Tresmayne, Thomas,” Marsden gravely accused, hands folded over the handle of his cane between his legs. “All about Harry an’ Anne Moore havin’ at each other, an’ ye knowin’ all o’ their doin’s, too. Knew their secret signals… lace or ribbons, off a dress o’ hers. One ye got th’ ribbon off of, so ye could send that last bouquet that got Harry out where he was killed. An’ we know how ye set a fire at Mr Livesey’s house last night, tryin’ to scare him off when th’ gown got retrieved.”

  “Your honor!” Lakey replied with a genteel shudder, almost giggling in surprise at the outlandishness ofit all. “I surely don’t know what in th’ world you’re talkiri about, sir!” he went on in one of those soft, quavery and high-pitched voices, with his vowels slurred, that Livesey had come to recognize as a Carolinian’s way of being excruciatingly polite; the syrupy sort of facade that cloaked outrage, anger, fear or nerves—the sort of sing-song that usually preceded an invitation to a duel, or a fist-fight, once a man’s honor was touched.

  “B’lieve th’ sun’s got to you t’day, Mr Marsden, I sure do.” Lakey smirked, plucking at his shirt ruffles and shooting his cuffs. “You sound badly in need o’ somethin’ cold an’ wet. Some wine I’ve had chillin’ down in th’ springhouse, and we’ve some Massachusetts ice in the root cellar …”

  “Oh, don’t play genteel, Thomas. We know, I tell ye,” M
arsden insisted. “Ye can’t weasel out. Can’t put it off on Eachan MacDougall or Osgoode Moore, nor no one else. Y’always did think yerself so damn clever, an’ I’ll allow ye are, most times … but ye slipped up, Thom. Didn’t watch close enough, ye o’ all people, who us’lly watches things so close, takes such a keen int’rest in others’ doin’s, so yer gossip’sjuicier than others’.”

  “I’ll ring for that wine,” Mr Lakey announced, regarding Mr Marsden with a faint look of alarm, as if his supper guests had begun to rend their clothes and talk in tongues. He picked up a tiny china bell on a side table and summoned a servant.

  “Mr Swann, I’d admire did ye fetch us that bundle outta th’ coach, sir,” Marsden directed, forcing the heavily perspiring Constable to heave himself out of the bench settee and plod down the nights of stairs; Captain Buckles shifted enough to preclude Swann’s return alongside him, looking relieved, andjust as sweaty and florid.

  An older Negro servant came to the veranda from the house, slowly shuffling his slippered feet, to stand by Lakey’s rocking chair.

  “Lijah, we’ll have two bottles of th’ Rhenish from th’ springhouse,” Mr Lakey instructed, paying no attention to Swann’s plodding down, then back up, the stairs. “Slivers o’ ice with it, an’ enough glasses for all. Sure you’ll have none, Mr Marsden? None either, Mr Livesey, tsk tsk? I know Swann’ll wish some, an’ Captain …?”

  “Buckles,” the Army officer pointedly reminded him.

  “My pardons, sir. A glass for Captain Buckles, too. Go along, then, Lijah,” Lakey directed.

  “Yassuh.”

  Constable Swann regained the expansive porch, puffing a little. He offered the bundle to the magistrate, but that worthy grimaced, gave a sign with a finger lifted offhis cane handle, and Swann dumped the bundle on the painted boards, pulling the sailcloth from beneath the contents, and using a toe to spread the gown out for better viewing.

  “That’s th’ gown Anne Moore threw away last night,” Mr Marsden grimly intoned. “Th’ one ye saw Jemmy Bowlegs filch from her garbage barrel. Ye talked t’Anne last night, saw how distressed she was that Mr Livesey’s daughter’d been pressin’ her ‘bout it. But ye knew all about it long ago. That bouquet of oleander blossoms is what ye sent t’Harry th’ night ye killed him. Used ribbon ‘stead o’ lace for bows, ‘cause ye’d already figured out that lace’d mean t’meet at that abandoned cabin on your land, an’ ye couldn’t have any o’ that, an’ ribbons meant a deer glade off th’ Masonborough Road. Two bows, tied nice an’ neat, meanin’ ev’nin’, not mornin’ …so there’d be no witnesses. Ye see what I mean, Thomas?”

  “I really don’t understand a word you’ve said, Mr Marsden,” Lakey said back, faintly chuckling and shaking his head in confusion.

  Matthew Livesey had been holding his breath and peering at Mr Lakey closely to see what his reaction would be, and he let his wind flow out in a rush and took a fresh breath at last when he witnessed Lakey’s face betray him. The man’s mouth pinched, only the slightest, but it did, as two faint spots of color arose on his cheeks, even as his “genteelly” suntanned flesh transformed to the color and texture of a virginal piece of parchment. His eyes, yes, his eyes! A pained squint—part of his studied dissembling, perhaps—but he could not avoid his eyes from shifting, his lashes from too-rapid blinking!

  We’ve got him! Livesey silently exulted to himself. And who’d have ever guessed in a thousandyears!

  In a bit of impeccably bad timing, Elijah, the old house servant, returned with a silver tray, on which rested a chilled bottle of white wine and three glasses, and Livesey imagined he could hear Mr Marsden’s remaining teeth grind in fury as the old man took his own sweet time to pour the wine, dropping a sliver of ice in each glass, and damned if glasses given to Captain Buckles and Constable Swann weren’t readily accepted, the old man shuffling between Livesey and Marsden!

  “It was you,” Livesey blurted, just as soon as Elijah’s backside was through the doors, “who started those rumors about Harry crossing the Brunswick to call on a fetching girl. You told them to my girl, Bess, even if you did swear you put no credence in them, and that she wasn’t to, either. But as we all know, that’s the best way to assure that they’re believed—and spread. You thought to make people think it was Biddy MacDougall Harry was spooning, ‘cause everyone would suspect her father, Eachan, who’s a reputation for violence and a past killing. After all, Biddy made that gown, there, and you knew that as soon as it was finished, a whole year ago, Mr Lakey!”

  “But I didn’t put any credence in …” Lakey attempted to pooh-pooh, turning to face Livesey with a top-lofty condescension.

  “You started the rumor of Anne Moore seeing someone, too,” Livesey quickly added, hoping to regain that rattled look on the man’s patrician face, “‘cause you’d seen them at… clicket… you knew that rumor was true. Did you plan to taint Osgoode with the murder of his best friend and mentor, if Eachan MacDougall wouldn’t wash?”

  “Aye!” Mr Marsden harumphed from Lakey’s other side, regaining his own thread of thought. “But ye know somethin’ Thomas? All of yer skills at watchin’ folks, an’ ye still slipped up. Ye were so busy at yer plottin’ an’ schemin’, ye plumb forgot to keep an eye on Osgoode! Know where he was that night, Thomas …th’ night ye killed Harry?”

  “This game’s gettin’ boresome, your honor,” Lakey responded with a weary sigh, “but I’ll play up. Where was Osgoode, th’ night someone murdered good old Harry?”

  “‘Cross th’ Brunswick his own self, Thom.” Marsden cackled with glee to relate it. “In Eachan MacDougall’s hayloft, with Biddy! Can ye beat that? Both prime suspects spoken fer, an’ ye th’ only busybody in’ th’ middle ofit all remainin’.”

  “I see,” Lakey said, with a severe expression. To Livesey, it sounded as if Lakey had been gut-punched, though. He took some time at his wine, taking several small sips, his eyes shut as if savoring it.

  “Always callin’ on Anne, right in her bedchamber,” Mr Marsden went on, looking more at ease, even a trifle amused. “Ye knew o’ that gown, an’ had easy access to it. Did Anne ever confide in ye, Thomas? Swear ye t’silence ‘bout her affair with Harry? What’d Harry ever do to ye that set yer mind t’killin’ him?”

  Lakey only glared at the magistrate, his eyes now frosted. Mr Marsden got to his feet and went to the veranda railings to squit a dollop of tobacco juice into a bed of azaleas and dwarf magnolias.

  “Might as well ‘fess up, Thomas,” Marsden snapped. “Dammit, be a man! For we ain’t leavin’ without ye.”

  “Harry,” Lakey said at last, pursing his lips after a sip from his wineglass, as if the Rhenish was too sweet, or had an acid finish. He looked at Marsden, contemplatively, for a moment, then let his gaze wander past them all, as if did he ignore them, they would all go away. He looked out at his rich, productive fields, his elegant gardens, as if to fix them in his memory.

  “Why did you do it, Mr Lakey?” Livesey impatiently demanded at last. “Harry was your friend, your partner in your faction for the betterment of all small holders and common folk. Why, for the love of God?”

  “For the love o’ God,” Lakey mused, shaking his head as if the idea was mildly amusing. “Well, perhaps that, in th’ end.”

  “Ye confess to it?” Marsden snapped, pouncing on his statement.

  Lakey looked up with a sickly, quirky smile flitting over his face, then, amazingly, gave them all a slow, grave nod of confirmation.

  “Why?” Livesey exclaimed.

  “You asked what Harry ever did t’me, Mr Marsden?” Mr Lakey answered, with a sadly amused pout. “He slowly, bit by bit, took my life from me, ruined or stole th’ best parts of it … turned rotten everything he ever touched! Would ve gone on taintin’, spoilin’ an’ stealin’ until somebody put a stop to it.

  “So, yes, Livesey.” Lakey nearly smirked as he turned to face him, lowering his cocked booted leg to the floor at last, as he said, “At th’ last, perhaps puttin’ a s
top to him was for th’ love o’ God.”

  “How did he … ?” Livesey indignantly spat. No matter what he had learned since Harry’s death to diminish his respect for him, yet he could not accept such a vile calumny on his friend’s memory.

  “His first wife, Priscilla,” Lakey calmly stated, pouring his wineglass full again with a prissy exactness, even to the way he set the bottle back onto the coin-silver serving tray and snowy napkin. “A lovely, decent young lady. Finest, sweetest girl who ever drew a breath. Priscilla was my first cousin, if you recall, an’ when I came t’ th’ Cape Fear as a lad, she became as dear as a sister to me. I was a touch leery when she fell for Harry, but we all hoped he’d mended his ways … sewn his wild oats an’ was ready to settle down. Had my reservations, but Priscilla was so over the moon for him, an’ Harry could be so damned charmin’ an’ play-act upright, that I put my fears aside. B’sides, what did I know, a ‘Johnny Newcome’ up from Charleston, damn near an orphan. Harry had us all fooled, an’ still does.

  “Before I saw what a rapacious, two-faced, lyin’, cheatin’ … brute he was!” Lakey spat, exercised at last. “Priscilla was closer t’me than realkln, an’ my dezrestfriend. And I had t’watch her go down, little by little, as Harry cheated on her, an’ broke her sweet heart, year after year. Twelve years, it took him, ‘til she couldn’t stand any more, an’ turned her head t’ th’ wall an’ died. I watched it happen. An’ I’m good at watchin’, you know, hah!”

  “Good God!” Mr Marsden spat in disgust.

  “Priscilla sick an’ on her deathbed, an’ Harry could play th’ grievin’, faithful husband. But he still whored as hot as ever. New Bern, Brunswick, Duplin, Rocky Mount? An’ goin’ through the servant girls when he couldn’t get away. Shoulda killed him, then, spared us all from his vileness,” he said, slugging back his wine.

  Captain Buckles sat wide-eyed in sick amazement, rapt upon the tale, though, whilst the others queasily listened, squirming in embarrassment, never knowing ‘til now, only suspecting …